NONE of us knew how long we had slept; we only knew that it
was night. Some men of our company had waked us up. They had been
looking for us for a long time. "Come along," they said;"
the old man is outside and making a hell of a row. He has got
seventeen men together and is swearing like a trooper because
he can't find you." Drowsily and completely bereft of any
will-power of our own we trudged after them. We knew we were again
being sent forward.

But we did not care; we had lost all balance. Never before
had I noticed such indifference on our part as on that night.

There the old man was standing. He saw us coming up, without
headgear, the uniforms all torn to tatters, and minus our knapsacks.
He received us with the greeting, "Where have you been, you
boobies?" Nobody answered. What did we care? Things could
not get any worse than they were. Though all of us resented the
wrong done to us we all remained silent.

"If they were all like you---" For a while he went
on in that style. That pretty fellow had suffered the "miserable
vagabonds " to go forward while he himself had been defending
his "Fatherland" at Vitry, three or four miles behind
the front. We picked out the best from among the rifles that were
lying about, and, soon we were again "ready for battle."

We were standing half-asleep, leaning on the barrel of our
rifles and waiting to be led forth again to slaughter, when a
shot was fired right in our midst. The bullet had shattered the
entire right hand of a "spoiled ensign," as the officers
express themselves. His hand was bandaged. "How did that
happen? " asked the officers. An eyewitness related the incident
saying. "Like all of us he put his hand on the mouth of the
barrel when it happened; I did not see any more." "Had
he secured the gun? Don't you know that it is forbidden to lean
with your hand on the mouth of your rifle and that you have been
ordered to secure your rifle when it is loaded?" Then turning
to the "spoiled ensign," who was writhing with pain,
he bawled at him: "I shall report you for punishment on I
account of gross negligence and self-mutilation on the battle-field!"

We all knew what was the matter. The ensign was a sergeant,
but a poor devil. He was fully aware that he had no career before
him. We soldiers liked him because we knew that military life
disgusted him. Though he was a sergeant he chose his companions
solely among the common soldiers. We would have divided with him
our last crust of bread, because to us especially, he behaved
like a fellow-man. We also knew how harshly he was treated by
his superiors, and wondered that the "accident" had
not happened before. I do not know whether he was placed before
a courtmartial later on. Punishments for self-mutilation are the
order of the day, and innumerable men are being severely punished.
Now and then the verdicts are made known to the soldiers at the
front to serve as a deterrent. The people at home, however, will
get to hear very little of them.

The captain passed on the command to an officer's representative,
and then the old man disappeared again in the direction of Vitry.
He spurred on his steed, and away he flew. One of the soldiers
thought that the captain's horse was a thousand times better off
than we were. We knew it. We knew that we were far below the beast
and were being treated accordingly.

We marched off and halted at the northwestern exit of the village.
There we met sappers gathered from other companies and battalions,
and our company was brought up to 85 men. The officer's representative
then explained to us that we should not be led into the firing
line that day; our only task was to watch that German troops fighting
on the other side of the Marne should find the existing temporary
bridges in order in case they had to retreat. We marched to the
place where the Saulx enters the Marne.

So we marched off and reached our destination towards six o'clock
in the morning. The dead were lying in heaps around us in every
field; death had gathered in a terrible harvest. We were lying
on a wooded height on our side of the Marne, and were able to
overlook the country for many miles in front of us. One could
see the explosions of the shells that were raining down by the
thousand. Little, almost nothing was to be seen of the men, and
yet there were thousands in front of us who were fighting a desperate
battle. Little by little we could make out the faint outline of
the struggle. The Germans were about a mile and a half behind
the Marne in front of us. Near the banks of the Marne large bodies
of German cavalry were stationed. There were only two tumble-down
bridges constructed of make-shift materials. They stood ready
to be blown up, and had plenty of explosive matter (dynamite)
attached to them. The electrical priming wires led to our position;
we were in charge of the firing apparatus. Connected by telephone
we were able to blow up the bridges in an instant.

On the other side things began to get lively. We saw the French
at various places pressing forward and flowing back again. The
rifle fire increased continually in violence, and the attacks
became more frequent. Two hours passed in that way. We saw the
French bringing up reinforcement after reinforcement, in spite
of the German artillery which was maintaining but a feeble fire.
After a long pause the enemy began to attack again. The French
came up in several lines. They attacked several times, and each
time they had to go back again; each time they suffered great
losses. At about three o'clock in the afternoon our troops attacked
by the enemy with all his strength, began to give ground, slowly
at first, then in a sort of flight. Our exhausted men could no
longer withstand the blow dealt with enormous force. In a wild
stampede all of them tried at the same time to reach safety across
the bridges. The cavalry, too, who were in cover near the banks
of the river, rushed madly to the bridges. An enormous crowd of
men and beasts got wedged before the bridges. In a trice the bridge
before us was thickly covered with human beings, all of whom were
trying to reach the opposite side in- a mad rush. We thought we
could notice the temporary bridge sway under its enormous burden.
Like ourselves the officer's representative could overlook the
whole country. He pressed the receiver of the telephone convulsively
to his left ear, his right hand being on the firing apparatus
after which another man was looking. With bated breath he gazed
fixedly into the fleeing crowds. "Let's hope the telephone
is in order," he said to himself at intervals. He knew as
well as we did that he had to act as soon as the sharp order was
transmitted by telephone. It was not much he had to do. Directed
by a movement of the hand the man in charge of the apparatus would
turn a key that looked like a winged screw---and all would be
over.

The crowds were still rushing across the bridge, but nearly
half of our men, almost the whole of the cavalry, were still on
the other side. The bridge farther up was not being used so much
and nearly all had reached safety in that portion of the battlefield.
We observed the foremost French cross that bridge, but the bridge
remained intact. The sergeant-major who was in charge of the other
apparatus was perplexed as he received no order; so he blew up
that bridge on his own responsibility sending hundreds of Frenchmen
to their watery grave in the river Marne.

At the same moment the officer's representative next to me
received the command to blow up the second and last bridge. He
was confused and hesitated to pass on the order. He saw that a
great crowd of Germans were still on the other side, he saw the
struggles of that mass of men in which every one was trying to
be the first one to reach the bridge and safety beyond. A terrible
panic ensued. Many soldiers threw themselves into the river and
tried to swim across. The mass of soldiers on the other side,
still numbering several thousands, were pressed harder and harder;
the telephone messages were becoming ever more urgent. All at
once the officer's representative jumped up, pushed aside the
sapper in charge of the apparatus, and in the next second a mighty
explosion was heard. Bridge and men were blown into the air for
hundreds of yards. Like a river at times of inundations the Marne
was carrying away wood and men, tattered uniforms and horses.
Swimming across it was of no earthly use, and yet soldiers kept
throwing themselves into the river.

On the other side the French began to disarm completely the
German soldiers who could be seen standing there with hands uplifted.
Thousands of prisoners, innumerable horses and machine guns had
fallen into the hands of the enemy. Some of us were just going
to return with the firing apparatus which was now superfluous
when we heard the tale of the significance of the incident, confirming
the suspicions of many a one amongst us. An error had been committed,
that could not be undone! When the bridge higher up, that was
being used to a smaller degree by the soldiers, had been crossed
by the German troops and the enemy had immediately begun his pursuit,
the staff of officers in command at that passage intended to let
a certain number of enemies cross the bridge, i.e., a number that
could not be dangerous to the German troops who were in temporary
safety. Those hasty troops of the enemy could not have received
any assistance after the bridge had been blown up, and would have
been annihilated or taken prisoners. For that reason it was intended
to postpone the blowing up of the bridge.

However, the sergeant-major in charge of the firing apparatus
imagined, as his thoughts kept whirling through his head, that
the telephone wires must have been destroyed, and blew up on his
own initiative the bridge that was densely crowded with Frenchmen,
before our opponent succeeded in interrupting the wires., But
at the same time the officer's representative in charge of the
firing apparatus of the second bridge received an order, the words
of which (as he later himself confessed) were not at all clear
to him, threw the receiver aside, lost the absolutely necessary
assurance, killed all the people on the bridge, and delivered
hundreds upon hundreds into the hands of the enemy.

We had no time to gather any more detailed impressions, for
we received the order that all the men of our company were to
gather at Vitry before the cathedral. We began to sling our hook
with a sigh of relief, that time a little more quickly than ordinarily,
for the enemy's artillery was already beginning to sweep the country
systematically. We heard from wounded men of other sections, whom
we met on the way, that the French had crossed the Marne already
at various places. We discussed the situation among us, and found
that we were all of the same opinion. Even on Belgian territory
we had suffered heavy losses; every day had demanded its victims;
our ranks had become thinner and thinner; many companies had been
used up entirely and, generally speaking, all companies had suffered
severely. These companies, furnished and reduced to a minimum
strength, now found themselves opposed to an enemy excellently
provided with all necessaries. Our opponent was continually bringing
up fresh troops, and we were becoming fewer every hour. We began
to see that it was impossible for us to make a stand at that place.
Soldiers of the various arms confirmed again and again that things
were looking just as bad with them as with us, that the losses
in men and material were truly enormous. I found myself thinking
of the "God of the Germans. Had He cast them aside?"
I thought it so loudly that the others could hear me. "Well,"
one of them remarked, "whom God wants to punish He first
strikes with blindness. Perhaps He thought of Belgium, of Drucharz,
of Sommepy, of Suippes, and of so many other things, and suffered
us to rush into this ruin in our blind rage."

We reached Vitry. There the general misery seemed to us to
be greater than outside. There was not a single house in the whole
town that was not overcrowded with wounded men. Amidst all that
misery pillaging had not been forgotten. To make room for the
wounded all the warehouses had been cleared and their contents
thrown into the streets. The soldiers of the ambulance corps walked
about, and everything that was of value and that pleased them
they annexed. But the worst "hyenas" of the battle-field
are to he found in the ammunition and transport trains. The men
of these two branches of the army have sufficient room in their
wagons to store things away. The assertion is, moreover, proved
by the innumerable confiscations, by the German Imperial Post
Office, of soldiers' parcels, all of them containing gold rings,
chains, watches, precious stones, etc. The cases discovered in
that or any other way are closely gone into and the criminals
are severely punished, but it is well known that only a small
percentage of the crimes see the light of day. What are a thousand
convictions or so for a hundred thousand crimes!

In Vitry the marauders' business was again flourishing. The
soldiers of the transport trains, above all, are in no direct
danger in war. Compared with the soldiers fighting at the front
it is easy for them to find food; besides, it is they who transport
the provisions of the troops. They know that their lives are not
endangered directly and that they have every reason to suppose
that they will return unscathed. To them war is a business, because
they largely take possession of all that is of any value. We could
therefore comprehend that they were enthusiastic patriots and
said quite frankly that they hoped the war would continue for
years. Later on we knew what had happened when the Emperor had
made one of his "rousing" speeches somewhere in the
west and had found the "troops " in an "excellent
" mood and full of fight." Among that sort of troops
there were besides the transport soldiers numerous cavalry distributed
among the various divisions, army corps staffs, and general staffs.